Thepioneer gypsiologists around the turn of the twentieth century thought Old
Joe Buckley, father of the famous Elijah and Joiner, was himself the son of a
Perun Buckley. I’ve found no support for this in the records (I don’t count as
support the fact that Joiner had a grandson called Perun). As always we need to
look beyond the gypsiologists, and I believe geography, as so often, is a good
place to start.
Joe’s other well known sons, Hiram and Samuel, were born in Essex; Joe was “a
traveller of Barking, Essex” when christening Elijah in 1799, and christened an
Elizabeth in Barking in 1803; Joiner was “a gypsy of Barking, Essex” when
christening Gonation in 1839; and Joe’s descendants were found predominantly in
the nineteenth century in Essex. So Essex, and especially Barking, is the first
place to look when trying to trace Joe back.
A glance at the Barking records quickly establishes that a Joseph Buckley was
baptised there in 1770 son of Dennis and Pleasant, which looks promising.
However, further examination of the Barking records shows that the Joseph
christened there had three siblings (Susan, Mary and Sidney) christened there in
1767, 1773 and 1779, that a Dennis Buckley was buried there in 1785 (and another
Dennis Buckley in 1830).
It’s true a Gypsy woman called Pleasant Buckley was buried in Kedington, Suffolk
in 1789 some forty miles away, who might have been Joseph’s mother, and it’s
true a later Dennis Buckley, husband of Margaret, was described as a sojourner
when christening a Thomas in Newton in the Isle, Cambs in 1834, but in general
these Barking Buckleys don’t look much like Gypsies, let alone Gypsies likely to
produce high profile family members like Elijah, Joiner and the rest.
If we want a father for Joe who was incontestably a Gypsy and incontestably a
high profile Gypsy, we ought to widen our search. An obvious candidate here is
the Shadrach Buckley, husband of an Elizabeth, who christened at least five
children in Essex around the time Joe was born: Charles in Gt Warley in 1761,
Salavino in Dagenham in 1770, Ann in Barking in 1772, Margaret in Romford in
1774, and James in Dagenham again in 1778. We have here a baptism in Barking,
and four more nearby (Gt Warley is about eight miles from Barking with Romford
and Dagenham on a fairly straight line between them).
More importantly we have with Salavino’s baptism confirmation that Shadrach was
a Gypsy (he was recorded on that occasion as a tinker, but given no ethnic
indicators at the other baptisms). And, better still, we have in Salovino’s
unusual forename confirmation that Shadrach was a Gypsy of some distinction.
Shadrach Buckley seems to have named him after the Salavino Boswell christened
in Asheldam, Essex in 1756, who I argued last month was a close relative of
Shadrach Boswell, and Shadrach’s wife, it was revealed at the baptism of a son
in 1792, was at birth a Cinderella Buckley.
I find it hard to believe Shadrach Buckley wasn’t Cinderella Buckley’s brother,
and, if this was so, their family, embracing striking, unusual forenames like
Shadrach and Cinderella, and embracing inter-marriage with an old Romany family
like Shadrach Boswell’s, was surely the right kind of family to delight in
forenames like Elijah, Lavithan, Lazarus, Hiram, Britannia, Joiner, Justinia,
Gonation and Santalina, and in inter-marriages with old Romany families
(including Shadrach Boswell’s), like the East Anglian Smiths, Lees, Chilcotts
and Grays.
Having said that of course, I have to recognize that we have the 1770 baptism of
Dennis and Pleasant’s son, a Joseph Buckley of Barking, Essex, and we have as
yet no proof Shadrach and Elizabeth Buckley ever had a Joseph. It’s best, while
looking for it, to keep an open mind.